Time for reflection

The early bus ride from the hotel turns into a big show in quite a few of the buses as the twelve teams competing in the MTG United for Peace cup take turns to make their voices heard. In the Scandinavian bus the Swedish girls’ voices completely drown all the others when they sing along to their music and dance in the aisle. Finally the whole busload of footballers gives up and decides to join in.   

It is a glorious autumn morning on Friday 7 October with the sun casting its reflections in the sea by Aker Brygge when all the competitors at MTG’s United for Peace cup gather at the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo. Today is a big day for the young footballers and a big day for peace – it is the day of the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize winner. This is also why MTG United for Peace has chosen this specific day to let all the children participate in the “School of Tolerance” at the centre.

There is a bit of confusion and nervousness at first when the children meet their tutors, but it quickly turns into interest as the children realise that this is all about the world they live in, this is about being a human being. The young footballers get encouraged to reason and think outside the box in order to find a way to solve conflicts, and that conflicts aren’t necessary all bad as long as both parts listen to one another and are willing to say sorry. 

 
Alice Haffar and Asen Zornitzob Nedkob

Conflicts on a larger scale though aren’t that easy to solve and the children are moved when they hear about what the situation can be like for refugees. They get told what life in a refugee camp is like for an eight year old girl in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country in a largely forgotten war that’s been going on for a very long time:   

“The story was terribly sad”, says a touched Alice Haffar from the Great Britain girls’ team. “There are so many people like her and even though this girl tries her hardest, it seems so hopeless. If MTG United for Peace one day is able to help people like her, it would be a really fantastic contribution. Because, you know, us kids are the future!”

“It’s very bad to have to live like that. It’s inhuman. I don’t think I realised just how bad the situation was like for refugees before”, says Asen Zornitzob Nedkob from Bulgaria’s boys team.

Just before 11 o’clock MTG United for Peace’s chairman Jan Åge Fjørtoft gathers all the children in front of an enormous TV screen to sing Happy Birthday to world peace profile Desmond Tutu on his 80’s birthday. Everyone gets prepared to toast the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2011 with a champagne glass full of soft drink when it is time for the announcement. All the children cheer when Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman receive the prize for their relentless work campaigning for women's rights in Africa.   

 “I thought it was very useful to visit the centre”, says Alice Haffar. “Learning history like we did today is good. I also really liked the competition we had about which team could build the highest structure of straw. We all thought it was impossible, but we fought and we tried and it’s all about trying hard!” 

After lunch the whole of the LSK hall at Lillestrøm, just outside Oslo, is full of exited and hugely talented players doing their best to bring their teams to the finals. A few mixed matches are also taking part where the children, one from each team, have to use their newly found skills to overcome conflict to communicate with their fellow teammates. In a lot of cases they don’t share a language so the language of tolerance and football is the only one to resort to.    

By the end of the day it’s clear that the boys’ teams from Ghana and Slovenia along with the girls’ teams from the UK and Sweden are going to play the finals the following day. But at the pizza party in the evening there are no winners or losers, just a very happy bunch of young football players having a ball whilst consuming a surprisingly large amount of pizza!

See the photo gallery for October 7

Results Friday 7 October

GROUP STAGE: 

GROUP A 

• Ghana-Estonia 3-0
• Russia-Ghana 0-4
• Slovenia-Ghana 0-2
• Russia -Slovenia 0-4
• Slovenia-Estonia 0-0
• Russia-Estonia 0-4

Ghana 9 p (9-0)
Slovenia 4 p (4-2)
Estonia 4 p (4-3)
Russia 0 p (0-12)
Ghana and Slovenia through to the semi-finals.

GROUP B

• Latvia-Hungary 0-3
• Bulgaria-Hungary 0-1
• Bulgaria-Latvia 1-1
• Lithuania-Bulgaria 0-3
• Lithuania-Latvia 2-1
• Hungary-Lithuania 0-0

Hungary 7 p (4-0)
Bulgaria 4 p (4-2)
Lithuania 4 p (2-4)
Latvia 0 p (1-5)
Hungary and Bulgaria through to the semi-finals.

GROUP C

• Sweden-Denmark 2-0
• Norway-Sweden 2-6
• Denmark-Norway 1-0 
• UK-Norway 0-0
• UK-Denmark 1-0
• Sweden-UK 0-0

Sweden 7p (8-2)
UK 5p (1-0)
Denmark 3p (1-3)
Norway 1p (2-7)
Sweden and UK through to the final.

SEMIFINALS: 

• Ghana-Bulgaria 4-0
• Hungary-Slovenia 0-1 (AET)

Ghana and Slovenia through to the final.